Harry was pleased to see that whatever blunders he'd made the previous day - and he still couldn't quite figure out what they were - hadn't caused any problems for Remus with their hostess, at least as far as Harry could tell. She had chatted with him quite normally during dinner, although after dinner that evening she had joined Hestia Jones, Molly Weasley, and Tonks in a card game. Remus had settled down with Arthur Weasley and Sturgis Podmore to chat in front of the fire while he finished his coffee, but then had retired to the library. Harry had wandered over near the fire after Remus left, wondering again about Catherine Clare's strange behavior, and caught part of the conversation taking place at the table.
"I had forgotten about that," Hestia exclaimed. "Lina used to do the same thing when we roomed together."
"Lina?" Catherine Clare inquired.
"Emmeline Vance," Hestia explained, drawing another card. "We used to call her Lina when we were little."
"Where is she now?" their hostess persisted. A shadow fell across Hestia's face, and it was Molly Weasley who answered.
"No one really knows," she told her. "She disappeared at the end of last year. They found a couple of Death Eaters stunned at her house - Malfoy and Goyle - but they've never found her."
"She was a member of the Order the first time around?" Miss Clare asked very casually.
"Yes, I believe so," Molly confirmed. "How is your combat training going?" she continued, changing the subject. "I was horribly out of practice and really embarrassed the first time we met, but Remus manages to make you feel so comfortable about everything that I think I'm really improving." Molly Weasley darted an inquisitive look at Tonks, but the Metamorphmagus was studying her cards intently and didn't notice. "I see why everyone thought he was such a good teacher."
"Well, I'm also improving in my sessions with Severus and Moody," Catherine responded dryly, "mostly because I got tired of getting knocked down." The other players laughed. "Just when I thought the bruises would fade, we started on multiples."
Tonks shuddered. "I hated those," she said, with comically exaggerated loathing as she played her discard. "Must be some rite of passage thing. Torture you good and proper before they let you graduate."
Catherine added the card to her hand, removing a discard as she laid her remaining cards out on the table. Tonks groaned. "You're a lot harder to beat than Mum!" she protested. Catherine looked amused.
As Hestia gathered the cards up to shuffle, Harry decided to go look for Ron and Hermione.
****
The conversation Harry had overheard came back to him the following day. He was watching Ron and Hermione play chess in the lounge after lunch when Snape came to get Catherine Clare for combat practice. She had been chatting with Lupin on one of the sofas, but she rose immediately and left without complaint, leaving him to resume his reading.
Ron beat Hermione twice more before she gave up and decided to hunt Ginny up to go for a swim.
"Game?" Ron offered casually.
"Not just now," Harry replied. "I've thought of something I want to ask Professor Lupin." He crossed the room to ask his question while Ron packed up the chess pieces. Lupin looked up inquiringly as Harry approached.
"I was just wondering what a multiple is," Harry said. "Something to do with combat practices?" He wondered if it was something he ought to be doing himself that no one had bothered to tell him about.
Lupin set his book back down and gestured Harry to take a seat. "A multiple is just a combat exercise against multiple opponents," he told him. "Dueling is generally one-on-one, although team dueling is a little different. Still, team dueling starts out with the same number of people on each side, while a multiple starts out with one side outnumbered. Other than during the later stages of Auror training, you don't see much of it apart from actual combat. Unlike dueling, it's not also a competitive sport."
"How do you do it?" Harry asked, still trying to figure out if he was something he should be doing and wondering how to manage it. "I mean, how do you set up the exercise?"
Lupin rose to his feet. "You can come and watch one if you like," he suggested. "You too, Ron," he added, prompting Ron to set down the chess set he had finished packing up and head over to join them. "You'll be able to see well enough from the music room, although you won't be able to hear anything I'm afraid. We didn't want the sounds disturbing the rest of the household, so they're confined to the ballroom itself."
He led them out of the lounge into what Harry guessed must be the music room. It had another of the curved glass walls that seemed to be a feature of Stone House, but this one looked into the ballroom rather than outdoors. Since the ballroom also had another curved glass wall which did look out on to the lawns, the second wall gave the ballroom symmetry.
It had been emptied of any furniture, which was a good thing because the first thing Harry saw was Kingsley Shaklebolt skidding across the floor into the far wall. Any furniture in his path would have been smashed to bits. The Auror came to rest with large purple boils erupting from what seemed to be every inch of his rich dark skin. Alastor Moody was lying rigidly in another part of the room, his body twitching. Catherine Clare and Snape were shooting spells at each other so fast that all Harry could make out for a few seconds was a blur of green and blue flashes in the middle of the room. A moment later, they flew violently apart into the air, slamming into opposite walls before collapsing onto the floor.
"Wow," Ron blurted out, his eyes wide as Catherine Clare and Snape slowly picked themselves up off the floor.
"Yes," Professor Lupin agreed in a carefully neutral voice. "They're very good." Moody and Shaklebolt were getting up now too, and the four seemed to be discussing what had happened as Shaklebolt's boils were deflated.
"They're going to start again momentarily. One of them will activate the orb," Lupin explained, gesturing toward a small disk of blue light hovering near the ceiling, "and it will randomly display a color to indicate the target for the next round."
Harry had never seen anything like the exercises he saw that afternoon. Within the areas of study included in Defense Against the Dark Arts, combat spells had always been of particular interest to him. He had thought he was becoming fairly adept at them as he approached his last year of school and prepared for his N.E.W.T.'s, but his confidence plummeted as he watched the four combatants in the ballroom. He recalled Professor McGonagall saying during his career counseling session when he expressed interest in becoming an Auror that they only took the best. Everyone but Snape had been an Auror at one point, and although each of the combatants had their own style, they were all very good.
Moody was gifted with not only the magical eye, but a confidence and determination that nothing seemed to faze. Kingsley Shaklebolt, whom Harry had always thought of as rather good natured, not only deflected what Harry thought were probably some very nasty hexes from Snape with aplomb but also directed his own jinxes with uncanny accuracy.
Harry was not surprised to see that Snape, the only non-Auror in the room, was a vicious fighter with a seemingly endless variety of spells at his disposal and a knack for wriggling out of danger. Catherine Clare's fighting style did surprise him for some reason, although he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. She was intensely focused, but he would have expected that.
He frowned, and watched her coming up out of a diving roll to shoot a spear of blue light at Moody, who was then the target. When it hit him, the light vined around him to immobilize his wand hand, jerking his wand out of his grasp and flipping it back to her.
Evidently this was considered a conclusion to the combat, for she immediately tossed it back to him as the vine disappeared, while Kingsley Shaklebolt turned to assist Snape. Moody had caught him with an odd jinx Harry had never seen before. It had caused the Potions Master's head to roll around on his neck in a very unnerving manner, and Harry suspected it would be difficult for anyone but Moody to see anything under such circumstances.
It was as Harry was considering this that Professor Lupin asked him, "What are their weaknesses?"
"Sorry?"
"I asked you to identify their weaknesses," Lupin repeated. "We all have them. Now that you've had an opportunity to observe them in combat, I'd like to know what you think."
Harry tried to imagine himself in combat against Alastor Moody and his mind boggled at the thought. He shifted to Kingsley Shaklebolt to consider him next, but the Auror, who was now the target of the other three fighters, chose that moment to efficiently deflect an attack by Catherine Clare while he hit Moody with a perfectly placed Stunning Spell.
"They're all really good," Harry admitted helplessly. "I don't know what to say."
"If you're having difficulty discerning their weaknesses, you might begin by identifying their strengths," the former teacher suggested.
"What?"
Lupin regarded him very patiently. "They're usually the same thing. Just try it."
"Okay," Harry agreed gamely. "Well, Kingsley Shaklebolt uses his wand very well. He deflects efficiently and he doesn't waste energy when he's attacking. He's accurate, and he doesn't waste spells by directing them carelessly. He hits his targets."
"What does that tell you about him?" Lupin prompted.
Harry stared at him. "That he's really good," he replied flatly.
"It also tells you that he cares about his energy usage," Lupin explained patiently. "He's controlling it very carefully; that's his weakness. Good spells to use on him would be ones that drain - or even overload - magical energy. There are also spells that affect your wand directly, making it less predictable, and other spells designed to amplify or diminish spell effects. You want your opponent off-balance, and spells like the ones I've mentioned would have more of an impact on Kingsley than on Severus, for example, who can be easily pushed into wasting his energy and wouldn't care. Another option would be to create a situation where his careful energy management can't help him," Lupin continued. "Is this making sense to you?"
"I think so," Harry said slowly. "I understand it when you explain it, but I don't know if I could figure it out myself."
Lupin smiled. "Harry, the hard part is to be able to identify an opponent's fighting style, and you've already demonstrated that you can do that. Try one of the others yourself. Just talk through it." Harry nodded and took a deep breath.
"Okay, well, Moody relies on his magical eye to see what's going on, which is a big advantage. So, I would need to take it away from him, or damage it, or use something against him that the magical eye can't see," he ventured. Lupin nodded at him encouragingly.
"Um, Miss Clare - " Harry hesitated, as a bolt of blue light from her wand literally knocked Snape to the ground. She had a definite style, but he couldn't pinpoint what was different about it. Then it clicked into place. "Her style is very physical," he said suddenly. "She's using magic to move people, like taking Moody's wand away. There are times when she seems to be in a physical fight that involves magic rather than just magical combat!"
"Very good, Harry," Lupin said warmly, smiling at him. "I wasn't sure you'd be able to pick up on that, particularly since that's the first example you've seen of the American style of fighting."
"There's an American style?"
Lupin nodded. "It can be, and often is, more physical than what you've seen here. Part of the American Auror training includes techniques to use magic to enhance physical fighting skill. It's not uncommon for them to pass off some magical combat as skilled physical combat in front of Muggles without having to Obliviate them, although that's not the type of fighting Catherine is using here." Harry thought that their former teacher looked slightly amused as he continued as if speaking to himself. "I'll have to ask her some time whether she's considered to be a physical fighter on the other side of the Atlantic, or only here."
"Sorry?" Harry asked, not sure if he was supposed to respond. Lupin looked over at him.
"It can be difficult, when an opponent's fighting style is consistent with their culture's, to accurately assess an individual's style in that context. You see - " Remus broke off as the door from the lounge opened. "Good afternoon. Were you looking for me?"
Harry turned to see Albus Dumbledore standing in the doorway.
"Good afternoon, Remus. Actually, Catherine asked for a word with me, and I must be leaving soon, I'm afraid."
Remus turned back to look into the ballroom just as Catherine was slammed into another wall.
"I don't think she'll mind if you interrupt," he said with a hint of a smile.
****
Catherine Clare was not at breakfast or lunch, but no one seemed to think this was anything out of the ordinary. Harry had concluded that she was off on another mission for the Order - not that anyone would say so to him. The Headmaster came by for tea that day, and sat chatting amiably with Molly Weasley and Sturgis Podmore as though he had nothing better to do to while away the afternoon.
Nothing seemed at all unusual until Harry happened to glance up and catch sight of Dumbledore just as he was darting a quick look at Remus Lupin. For the tiniest fraction of an instant, Harry thought he saw a flash of concern, but when he looked again Dumbledore was wearing his usual placid expression and Harry wondered if he had imagined it.
After a time, the Headmaster rose to leave and Harry, acting purely on instinct, stood up as well and crossed the room to catch him just as he reached the door.
"Ah, Harry," Dumbledore greeted him with a smile. "I hope you're enjoying what's left of your holiday?" The Headmaster's eyes were twinkling at him over his half-moon spectacles as they frequently had in the past.
Harry had the sudden irrational conviction that he was concealing something.
"Very much, thank you," he said, smiling in return. If the Headmaster was going to act as if nothing were wrong, Harry would do the same. For the moment.
"It looked like you were about to leave," Harry continued, still smiling pleasantly. "I thought that if you were, I would walk with you." The Headmaster looked at him rather keenly for a moment, before nodding and continuing out the door.
"What can I do for you, Harry?" Dumbledore asked when they were safely out of earshot with the door to the lounge closed behind them.
"I wanted to know what's going on," Harry said flatly.
"What makes you think something is 'going on' that concerns you?" The Headmaster no longer looked placid, but there was very little to be read from his expression.
"Actually, I rather thought it concerned Remus more than me," Harry parried, and something flashed in Dumbledore's eyes. "I don't want to bumble around making things worse because no one took the time to fill me in and the information I did have led me to the wrong conclusions. So I'm asking you what's going on." There was a lengthy silence. Dumbledore studied Harry very gravely.
"Very well," he said at last. Then he turned and went into the library, carefully closing the door and taking a seat across from Harry. Harry tried to wait patiently for Dumbledore to begin.
When the Headmaster did start to speak, his words were totally unexpected.
"In order to explain to you what has happened, I need to go back to where it all began, which is, I suppose, when you and Miss Granger helped your godfather to escape on Buckbeak at the end of your third year." Harry blinked.
"You see, Sirius actually
ended up in America, where he made the acquaintance of Miss Clare."
"America!" Now that Dumbledore was actually filling him in, Harry hadn't meant to interrupt and immediately clamped his lips together. He was just surprised, having always thought that his godfather had gone somewhere warm and, well, tropical. The Headmaster seemed to know what he was thinking.
"America is a large country, Harry," he pointed out with a hint of gentle amusement. "It has a number of different climates and, er, living environments. But if I may continue, Sirius stayed with Miss Clare in America until he returned home during your fourth year. I don't know if you are aware of her background as a prosecutor?"
Harry nodded grimly. His experience with prosecutions by the Ministry had not been a good one.
"Again, Harry, the American system of justice, even in the wizarding community, is rather different from our own. Miss Clare has a very strong sense of fair play. I think –" the Headmaster paused for a moment, looking pensive, "I think that the fact that Sirius had been condemned to Azkaban without a trial appalled her. She verified his account, of course, very discreetly, but that took time, and in the interim, she was taking an extraordinary risk in allowing him to stay with her. A rather remarkable woman." Dumbledore fell silent then, lost in thought for some time.
Harry cleared his throat slightly, and the Headmaster looked up again and continued as though nothing had happened. "The Pensieve was her idea, I understand. Sirius was still suffering certain – aftereffects – of his time in Azkaban, and she thought that using the Pensieve might help him deal with the memories. I don't think it occurred to him to use it to share his memories of your parents with you until much later, shortly before he left. I believe he expected to return for the Pensieve himself at some point, but he did tell her to deliver it to Remus if anything happened to him."
"Unfortunately, with everything else that was going on, Sirius never told Remus or me about Catherine. She had no way of knowing that your godfather was killed at the Ministry." As Dumbledore said this, a giant hand squeezed Harry's chest, and he had to force himself to concentrate on the Headmaster's next words. "Sirius had contacted her not long before his death, and he was never a regular correspondent. It was several months before she began to become concerned."
"When she did, she tried to contact Remus as Sirius had requested, but he was – unreachable – while he was on a certain mission for the Order. She eventually got in touch with me. I recruited her into the Order while we were waiting for Remus to return and, as you know, she also agreed to allow the Order to use her family home as the new headquarters."
"Remus went to work sorting through the Pensieve. Most of the memories it originally contained were not included in the Pensieve Remus gave you, Harry." Dumbledore surveyed Harry over the tops of his half-moon glasses very seriously.
Some part of Harry wanted to protest, but before he spoke, he willed himself to stop and think this through. Sirius had entrusted his memories to his closest living friend and relied upon him to do the right thing. Harry silently vowed to respect that decision, although something wrenched painfully inside as he did.
"I understand," Harry said quietly. "Please go on."
He felt a small glow of warmth when Dumbledore's face lightened as he said this. Dumbledore was regarding him with approval. With a small mental wince, Harry realized that it was a long time since the Headmaster had looked at him with that expression on his face.
"The majority of the memories in the Pensieve were of his time in Azkaban, and I understand that they were – unpleasant – at best. Sirius had used the Pensieve to purge himself of some of his worst memories, and the task of sorting through them was an extremely difficult one. Remus persisted in doing all of it himself, despite the pain it was causing him, until Catherine persuaded him to allow her to share some of the burden." Dumbledore regarded Harry very intently as he continued. "Catherine only dealt with some of the Azkaban memories, Harry. You and Remus are the only ones who have seen those contained in the Pensieve given to you." Harry nodded his understanding.
"I'm glad she was able to help him," he said quietly. "I don't think Sirius intended to make Remus suffer."
The Headmaster sighed. "I'm sure he didn't, Harry. At any rate, the result was that Catherine was the only one who had seen certain memories that Sirius had of his time in Azkaban. She realized that Sirius had unwittingly left us critical information about the identity of a spy within the Order."
"A spy in the Order?" Harry echoed in surprise. "Do you mean that Voldemort has a spy within the Order itself? How could – " Harry broke off abruptly. Dumbledore looked very tired, and Harry was aware of the lines on his face and the great weight of years the Headmaster carried.
"Unfortunately, Harry," he told him quietly, "I am no more infallible than Voldemort, as you have already discovered. You are aware that we have a spy among the Death Eaters – an unpleasant necessity of war – and it is not surprising that Voldemort should seek a similar advantage. I thought this matter had been taken care of - Voldemort believes he has a double-agent within the Order - but apparently that was not enough to prevent him from taking additional steps. I only became aware a matter of months ago that Voldemort had again succeeded in placing - or perhaps I should say reactivating - a real spy within the ranks of the Order."
Harry caught a glimpse of the pain in his eyes before Dumbledore turned his head away for a moment, staring out the window.
"You would be quite correct in thinking that I should have been better prepared for this, particularly in light of the use Voldemort made of Peter Pettigrew in the last war." Harry found himself in the bizarre position of feeling he should be offering comfort to the man many regarded as the greatest wizard alive, and he wasn't sure how to do it.
"Professor," he began awkwardly, "we've probably been a bit, well, spoiled, because you always seem to know everything, but that's not really fair to you. You told me once that it is our choices that matter," Harry reminded him tentatively, "so I don't see how you can blame yourself for things that happen because of something you didn't even know."
Dumbledore swallowed hard. "Thank you, Harry," he murmured huskily, then cleared his throat in a determined manner.
"Continuing with the matter at hand, Catherine was able to use the information she obtained helping Remus with the Pensieve to identify the spy."
"Sir, am I allowed to ask – ?"
"It was Emmeline Vance," Dumbledore told him wearily. "I must ask that you keep that information to yourself, however."
Harry recalled the stately woman he had first met when she was among the party escorting him to Grimmauld Place. "So, then, everything's fine, right? Didn't she disappear months ago?" He had no idea how callous that sounded until he saw the Headmaster's involuntary flinch. "Sorry," he apologized quickly. "I didn't mean that the way it came out." The Headmaster put an end to Harry's penitence with a gesture.
"The Ministry formed the conclusion, as you may recall from the coverage in The Daily Prophet, that Emmeline Vance was either kidnapped or killed by Death Eaters last year, although her body was never recovered. In truth, she has been in hiding since that time."
Dumbledore's mouth twisted slightly. "Voldemort is not kind to those who fail him. I believe Emmeline was the woman you saw in your vision the afternoon of the first Quidditch match of your sixth year. The fact that I served as Secret-Keeper of the Order limited her usefulness as a spy, and Voldemort's patience was wearing thin. The night she disappeared, Lucius Malfoy, who recruited her into the Death Eaters, was ordered to bring her before their master. He would have tortured her, extracted what he could from her, and killed her. I don't know how much information Voldemort could have obtained in the process, but possibly enough to put the Order at risk."
Harry tried to process this. "So, does that mean that you've been hiding her from him?" he asked slowly. "Even though she was a traitor?"
"I arranged for her to go into hiding, and yes, I did it even though she was a traitor." Dumbledore told him.
"But – " Harry paused as a rather obvious discrepancy with the explanation struck him, "Remus said Catherine didn't give him the Pensieve until this spring, and Emmeline Vance disappeared last fall. That's not possible!" Harry's tone was accusatory.
"Catherine used a Time-Turner to go back and save Emmeline," Dumbledore explained, an odd note of pain in his voice. "She left last night, carrying a letter I wrote to myself."
There was a pause. "Isn't that, well, dangerous?" Harry asked hesitantly.
"Very," the Headmaster told him bluntly. "Catherine may have a slightly better chance of success than anyone else in the Order. She wasn't even in the country last fall, and none of you knew her then. Nevertheless, it was still an incredible risk. She has to cope with all the dangers inherent in time travel, in addition to having to protect Emmeline from the Death Eaters."
"When will she be back?"
Dumbledore hesitated, "If she comes back, it won't be any sooner than tonight. She would not want to encounter herself before she left."
"If – " Harry whispered, suddenly cold.
Harry had seen glimpses of the Headmaster's pain at times, but Dumbledore's grief was now apparent on his face. "We don't know what happened to her, Harry. Another member of the Order went with her that night last fall but – " he paused and steadied his voice, "Emmeline had some difficulty accepting the situation, and it took them longer than expected to convince her that she had to leave. All three of them were still there when the Death Eaters arrived – four of them. Catherine stayed and fought them alone to give the others time to get away. When Kingsley and Tonks arrived, they found Lucius Malfoy and Georgeson Goyle, both stunned, but there was no sign of anyone else."
"Remus – "
"Doesn't know." The Headmaster's tone was flat. "I won't tell him unless it becomes – necessary. There's no point in putting him through that while there's still a chance that she'll return safely. But – " here Dumbledore hesitated again "I think he may need your support if Catherine does not return."
"I understand, sir," Harry assured him, his throat tight.
"Thank you, Harry," Dumbledore said quietly, and Harry knew that the interview was over.